Interview Letter : New Vice Principal

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For this assignment I decided to interview our new vice principal, Dr. Sly. This is the second year I been at Carver that we will have a vice principal. Last year we only had a principal, and I feel that it was a lot of work for him to manage all the day to day tasks. Our vice principal seems like a great addition to our school. She is also vice principal at a middle school. She has a lot of experience as an administrator and is a big believer in using evaluations for teacher growth. Prior to becoming our vice principal, she was the vice principal at our other bilingual school in the district, and prior to that she was a principal for over ten years in Iowa. I think she will be great addition to our team and will help us continue to grow as a magnet school in our district.
How do you define “good teaching”?
Dr. Sly: When I look for good teaching, I am looking for student learning. Ideally, what I want to see is students learning and understanding why they are learning certain things in class. Whenever I walk into a classroom, I ask students “Why?” The response usually tells me if they actually understand and have purpose. This is what good teaching should be, where students show mastery or movement towards mastery. In the end, good teaching is about moving students forward academically and socially.
How effective do you find our current evaluation system?
Dr. Sly: I think our current system is set up for teacher growth. I like how teachers have the option of showing what they want to work on throughout the year or semester. Right now though, our current evaluations are not used for teacher growth. I know a great amount of principals who use the current system to get rid of teachers. Ideally, we would want all teachers to move fo...

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...et with teachers, these are the two things I focus on. I know state test scores are important, but that is not my focus and it is not why I became an administrator. I became an administrator to help guide teachers and improve everyone. I think teachers know what they are doing, we just have to give them more autonomy to do it in their own style. Is all about getting them onboard of improving every year. I am also fine with having tough conversations with teachers if I notice they are not here to help our students and themselves grow.
This was a great activity to do with my vice principal. I got to know her better and we spent a good amount of time talking about other issues that pertain to our school. We also talked about my science content lead role and my class sizes in fifth grade. Like I mentioned before, I think she will be great addition to our school.

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